Batman Beyond #6-8 - It took me several tries to figure out that cover. First I thought it was Terry holding his hand to his head, but I couldn't figure out why there seemed to be light shining around it. Then I thought it might be someone else's hands pressed to his head, but where was their wrist, and their arm? It finally dawned on me it's the impression Blight's hand made where he burned Terry. I thought the hair you can see in the finger was blood that had run over the hand. Guess I should have noticed the ear.
Terry and Paxton Powers escaped the exploding warehouse with the help of the Bat-cycle (I'm not calling it a Bat-pod) from The Dark Knight. Bruce figures the person behind the attempted assassination is also behind the labor unrest, and they plan to seize control of his company. Bruce attempts to draw them into the open with some line about buying out the shareholders to gain full control of the company. Which is great, because Blight does come out to play, but kicks Terry's tail. While Bruce heads to the office to deal with the labor unrest, Terry waits for Blight at Wayne Manor, and Blight obligingly shows up looking to kill the old man. Terry takes him down, and Bruce defuses the labor strife by agreeing to all the demands, and regains full control of the company.
It could be an interesting future development for Wayne to have full control of the company, and for it to be Wayne Incorporated, instead of Wayne-Powers, but it's really a cosmetic change. Since Paxton was in prison, and Blight was presumed dead, Wayne has basically run the company anyway. The idea that he had a responsibility to shareholders hadn't come up. I guess I'll have to see what Beechen does with it in the subsequent ongoing or mini-series they tease at the end of issue 8. On the whole, things felt a bit rushed. I didn't expect Blight to go for a big revenge strike on Wayne in broad daylight, but I suppose the Manor is isolated. Still, it seems like a needless risk for a guy who's stuck in a containment suit that can barely hold him together under normal circumstances.
Ryan Benjamin drew both issues, and his work's the same as it has been, except some of his facial expressions seem overly exaggerated. The fight scenes aren't anything fantastic, but they don't really detract from the book, except for the sense they could look better.
I'm discussing 8 separately since it's a standalone issue, detailing the origin of Inque. That's a nice cover right there. I like the white circle of her face stretching along the side of Batsy's head. Nice touch by Dustin Nguyen. Also, there are minute splotches on the word "Darker" on the cover, which is another nice touch.
Turns out Inque immigrated to Gotham to escape civil war in her country, was sold into slavery on the black market, sexually abused, escaped, was experimented on, gave birth to a child who was the result of the abuse, then the effects of the experiments kicked in and made her what she is, so she left her daughter at a church. After that it moves into the territory the cartoon covered, with her providing her daughter with money, her daughter backstabbing her as Inque starts to disintegrate. The new wrinkle is Inque is doing jobs pretty much just to get the mutagen to hold herself together, and her daughter's finally showing the ill-effects of those experiments being conducted while she was still in the womb.
Chris Batista's the penciller for the issue and he does a fine job. There's nothing spectacular, but I think he illustrates Inque as suitably angular and elongated. Also, during the stretch of the flashback before she mutates, her hair changes length as time passes. It's a little thing, but it's a nice touch. I don't know anyone who cuts their hair everyday so it's always the same length (though I'm sure such people are out there, obsessive-compulsives, perhaps).
I don't think Inque needs a tragic origin. Was Beechen's goal to make the reader feel bad for her? Then he might have wanted to leave out the opening sequence. It starts with her knocking Batman out, then killing several guards, including one she crawled inside and I don't know what she did, but it didn't look pleasant. Keep in mind the guards were no threat to her - Batman already pointed that out, everyone knew it - she could have eluded them easily. At a certain point, a villain accrues enough bad shit to their name I don't care about their tragic upbringing.
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